FEATURE:
Groovelines
The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
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IN this Groovelines…
IN THIS PHOTO: The Doobie Brothers in Amsterdam in 1975 (L-R): Tiran Porter, Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, Michael McDonald, Keith Knudsen, John Hartman, front - Pat Simmons/PHOTO CREDIT: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns/Getty Images
is a song that is not adored by all. I really love it and remembering hearing it for the first time as a child. What a Fool Believes is one of those classics that has lost none of its memorability and popularity. There have been different versions of the song. I am interested in the one by The Doobie Brothers. It is the standout track from their 1978 album, Minute by Minute (What a Fool Believes was released in January 1979). The album got the award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and received a nomination for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 1980. What a Fool Believes won them three Grammys, including Song and Record of the Year. There is an interesting article that gives us some story regarding What a Fool Believes. Before that, I want to bring in some Wikipedia background:
"What a Fool Believes" is a song written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. The best-known version was recorded by The Doobie Brothers (with McDonald singing lead vocals) for their 1978 album Minute by Minute. Debuting at number 73 on January 20, 1979, the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 14, 1979 for one week. The song received Grammy Awards in 1980 for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
The song was one of the few non-disco No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 during the first eight months of 1979. The lyrics tell a story of a man who is reunited with an old love interest and attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her before discovering that one never really existed.
It was claimed that Michael Jackson contributed at least one backing track to the original Doobie Brothers recording, but was not credited for having done so. This was later denied by the band”.
Although Stereogum are not completely sold on the legacy and brilliance of What a Fool Believes, they gives us some backdrop and useful information:
“There weren’t a whole lot of #1 singles in 1979 that didn’t at least nod toward disco. The Doobie Brothers’ “What A Fool Believes” stood out. It wasn’t disco. It wasn’t funky dixieland, either. Today, the song is considered a foundational yacht rock classic. But yacht rock wasn’t an actual genre; it was a retrospective category. Instead, “What A Fool Believes” was vaguely soulful soft rock, written by two of the key figures in the coming smoothed-out moment and recorded by a band in transition.
In the four years after they first hit #1 with “Black Water,” the Doobie Brothers didn’t land so much as a top-10 single. The band still sold albums, and they were still a live draw. They made their now-iconic guest appearance on a two-episode arc of What’s Happening!!, teaching Roger and Rerun about the evils of bootlegging, in 1978. But the Doobies had nothing to do with the disco wave that had taken over pop music, and they probably seemed like a relic of a distant post-’60s past.
And yet the Doobie Brothers were changing. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, a former Steely Dan sideman, had played on “Black Water,” and he became a full-time Doobie soon after. Meanwhile, frontman Tom Johnston was suffering from bad health, including a bleeding ulcer that kept him off the road for long stretches. Since the Doobies needed a new lead singer to tour, Baxter suggested another Steely Dan contributor: Michael McDonald, a native of the St. Louis suburbs who had serious piano chops and a big, burly voice.
Michael McDonald started writing “What A Fool Believes” on his own. He had the first verse, and he had the general storyline. He knew that this was a song about an old ex-couple, their breakup distant in the rearview mirror, meeting again to catch up. The man thinks they’re about to rekindle things. The woman is just being polite. The man has a hell of a time letting it go. McDonald couldn’t finish the song. Ted Templeman, the Doobies’ producer, heard McDonald’s fragment and told him that it was a hit, that he needed to finish it. Eventually, Doobies bassist Tiran Porter told McDonald that Kenny Loggins was hoping to write some songs with him.
Kenny Loggins came from the Seattle suburbs to Los Angeles in high school. As a young musician, he had stints playing guitar in a later Electric Prunes lineup and writing songs for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 1970, he met the former Buffalo Springfield and Poco member Jim Messina, and they formed Loggins And Messina, a smooth-rock duo who went on to sell a whole lot of records in the ’70s. (Loggins And Messina’s highest-charting song, 1972’s “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” peaked at #4. It’s a 5.) Loggins And Messina split up in 1976, and Loggins kicked off his solo career nicely, getting to #5 with the 1978 Stevie Nicks duet “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’.” (It’s a 6.)
The story of those “What A Fool Believes” lyrics is a classic grown-up pop music tale. A man thinks he’s in love. A woman isn’t into it at all. And so it turns into a reverie for the man, who can’t let go of this bygone era or of the idea that the era is destined to start again: “The sentimental fool don’t see/ Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created once in her life.” McDonald and Loggins know that the guy is deluded and that the couple won’t get back together, but they sympathize. Those lyrics, unfortunately, are a weird syntactic jumble that, at least for me, don’t really evoke the ache or the awkwardness of that situation: “As he rises to her apology/ Anybody else would surely know/ He’s watching her go.”
“What A Fool Believes” is clearly a well-made song. McDonald delivers it with verve and passion and personality. His big, heavy voice has enough versatility to hit upper-register notes — a natural baritone willing itself toward falsetto. The recording is thick and lush, with a whole lot going on. There’s a vaguely samba-ish rhythm and a sea of analog synths. The people who made the song knew what they were doing”.
I really love The Doobie Brothers and their great hits. Although there are various versions of What a Fool Believes, it is the one where Michael McDonald sings lead that leaves the biggest impression. It is a song that never fails to warm my spirits and get me singing along – this is the case with so many other people. Over forty years since it was released, What a Fool Believes continues to…
MOVE me hugely.